[ CLI Blog]

What is real? Now that sounds like a question from your first college philosophy class. Remember that?

For thousands of years, “What is real?” posed problems for all sorts of thinkers from the Pharaohs to Socrates to Plato to Aristotle and to thousands of others. Today, the question burns even deeper when we introduce Augmented Reality (AR) into the equation. When we take a view of what we believe to be real and augment that view with computer generated sensory input, does the original remain real, or does the augmented input become real?

Acquiring new customers costs you money. How much can you afford to spend to find a new customer? To answer that question, you need to know both how much a new customer is worth to you and how long it will take to reach a payback. That’s where Amplified LTV from CLI becomes your valuable tool.
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Most of us know the issues associated with choosing the right words when we speak or write, and most of us cringe when we see "they're" where we should see "their" or when we see "except" when we should see "accept." In Rhetoric, we use the phrase form equals content, and we mean by that that how we write causes people to use judge our content by our form. If we use poor form, then many people expect poor content from us.

Yes, we enjoyed making many new acquaintances, and we thank everyone who dropped by the booth to visit and to ask about the services of CLI. Unfortunately, as exhibitors, we could not participate in the drawing for the new Mercedes, but we hope that you won!

One thing that we heard time and again at the show is that internet retailers need more performance from their email marketing, and many of you want to know more about our Dynamic Content Email. Rest assured that information will head your way soon. As we review each request, we will send the information most pertinent to what you told us about your needs...

Last week I stood looking at the Atlantic Ocean and marveled at its expanse. I find no difficulty imagining the thoughts of early people who believed that the world ended at the horizon or of those who believed that people could never circumnavigate the globe once they discovered that they did not fall off the edge of the world. Of course, my thoughts wandered to words. Former college profs tend to think that way, and I thought of the difficulties we face while choosing the right words from an ocean of potential words. A little weird, huh? Well, bear with me.

One description of writing says that authors write their words, set them afloat into the marketplace of ideas, and readers decide what the authors meant. That may offer the best description of writing. It may also offer the best description of marketing, for we create what we hope will compel people to buy our products and leave it up to them to decide our effectiveness...

The VT/NH Marketing group runs great conferences, and the recent one at the Basin Harbor Club near Burlington, VT lived up to expectations. While meeting others of like mind creates a good atmosphere for exchanging ideas, the VT/NH group does all it can to welcome everyone and create a learning environment without any pressures. Of course, holding conferences at wonderful venues such as the Basin Harbor club cannot hurt!...

How long has your web site looked the way it looks right now? For how many years do you wear the same clothes?

While we don't think about websites as we think about clothes, still, websites sort of wear out with age. Websites take on a "look". Sometimes that's good, and sometimes, well, it's not so good. Websites that sport designs from yesteryear no longer generate the attraction they once claimed, and when the attraction fades, so fades the revenue. Some website owners just can't understand why their revenue continues falling. Maybe they should look at their website...

It used to be so easy! We designed for a few screen sizes and a handful of browsers.

Then, mobile devices invaded—smartphones, tablets, phablets—all of different shapes and sizes and using different operating systems. Desktop screens from 27 inches down to 7-inch tablets, 5-inch phablets, and 3-inch phones, with all kinds of configurations, brought complexity to design, and that complexity increases every day...

With the additional complications, however, comes good news. At the beginning of 2013, tablet users showed a higher conversion rate than desktop shoppers.*

The good news continues. 75% of mobile users shop on their devices, but when they shop, they expect speed. 74% of shoppers will leave your site within five seconds if it does not render. So, while we talked about the importance of optimizing our sites over the years, now we must resize graphics to display both quickly and correctly over mobile networks...

RIP 2015, Now What?

Now that the final numbers are in we know that retail sales for December 2015 were a disappointment. The much anticipated late year sales boost did not occur. Consumers did not take all the money they saved as a result of lower gas prices and spend it online, at the mall or anywhere else. For the year the overall trend was positive, but holiday shopping did not deliver on what may have been over-hyped expectations.

With December results in mind, here are eight predictions for 2016 that are essential for continued sales growth:

1. Flat, responsive and parallax design.

Websites either update or fade. Fresh looking new ecommerce sites pull in more business than site that have been around for a few years. The future prediction is that design is quickly going flat, responsive and parallax. Interfaces such as Apple's use flat design, making it mobile friendly. Responsive design makes your site receptive to a wide range of devices. Parallax is a single page design layout using JavaScript and css to navigate to different content. The battle of aesthetics will wage on throughout 2016 and beyond. CLI can help freshen your site, contact us.

2. Video will rise again, and AGAIN and AGAIN.

Product representation using video and 3D photography will increase because it works. Good videos that effectively illustrate product benefits will continue to driving sales like nothing else. Widespread availability of WI-FI makes it possible, increased mobile device access makes it necessary, and the natural human preference for pictures rather than printed words makes it work. Are you sold on video, but the cost is too high? CLI can provide motion photography in which we add zoom and fade to standard still photos while adding text annotation. Contact us for more information and a free set up with one of your photos.

3. Content rules.

Video usage will increase, but deep content plus video will rule. Consumers appreciate video, but they want to read some serious content before they load their carts. The Google search algorithms Panda 4.0 and Pay Day 2.0 work together to boost SEO placement for sites with high quality content, while reducing search results for sites with thin content...